The Awkward World

Hello friends!
There isn’t much new to report in the winter wonderland that is Chicago right now. We’ve had snow flurries a few times, but nothing substantial. I was ecstatic, all but prancing up State Street with Burl Ives crooning in the background. My classmates, mostly life-long Chicagoans, were unamused.
Besides the fluctuating weather, November has been uneventful and busy at the same time. I’ve been doing lots and lots of writing. I’ve checked off two of my Salon Challenge short stories and a poem, and I now have a pretty substantial start to my new novel, To the Dogs or Whoever (still a working title, but a better working title than Superchange, which had been the first thing to pop into my head).
Though I’m still a long way away from being able to post any chapters from TDW, I’ve decided to finally post the beginning fifth of Leap Year. If you’ve read Leap Year before, be aware that there is a bit more to Connor and K’s story now, as Part 2 is close to finished. Here’s Part 1, written between August 2007 and February 2008, with a few revisions since. If you haven’t read it, be advised that it is in fact a real live novel, and Part 1 is 77 pages long.
And to commemorate one of my favorite months, a suitably bitter poem from one of my favorite poets:

Reasons to Survive November

November is like a train wreck –
as if a locomotive made of cold
had hurtled out of Canada
and crashed into a million trees,
flaming the leaves, setting the woods on fire.

The sky is a thick, cold gauze –
but there’s a soup special at the Waffle House downtown,
and the Jack Parsons show is up at the museum,
full of luminous red barns.

– Or maybe I’ll visit beautiful Donna,
the kickboxing queen from Santa Fe,
and roll around in her foldout bed.

I know there are some people out there
who think I am supposed to end up
in a room by myself

with a gun and a bottle full of hate,
a locked door and my slack mouth open
like a disconnected phone.

But I hate those people back
from the core of my donkey soul
and the hatred makes me strong
and my survival is their failure,

and my happiness would kill them
so I shove joy like a knife
into my own heart over and over

and I force myself toward pleasure,
and I love this November life
where I run like a train
deeper and deeper
into the land of my enemies.

-Tony Hoagland

Happy November! Stay warm, everybody!

All my love,
Tanner

Sweater Weather – The Pains of Relocation
Thao – Beat (Health, Life, and Fire)
The Rosebuds – Leaves Do Fall
Fleet Foxes – Oliver James
Bruce Springsteen – Thunder Road

[EDIT]: Oh, and thanks, Penny Arcade, for tackling the biggest misconception about my other chosen profession. I don’t have to write relevant comics anymore because you’re doing it for me. Yay!